GOP attacks oil tax plan

Those words, uttered in 2008 by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, resurfaced on Wednesday as Republicans ripped into Democrats for using the BP oil spill to raise taxes.

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Specifically, GOP senators objected to a proposed fivefold hike in the tax oil companies now pay into a spill liability fund. The proposal, part of a larger tax extenders bill being debated by the Senate, increased the tax on offshore oil to 41 cents per barrel from 8 cents.

Republicans have complained that the money generated by the tax hike—$15 billion over 10 years—actually would be used to ease a House-backed tax on investment fund managers and to offset increased spending on things like Medicaid.

“Unfortunately, it’s another example of Rahm Emanuel’s famous phrase, ‘We’re not going to let another crisis go to waste,’” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said. “It basically steals that money out of the fund for a completely unrelated purpose.”

Earlier on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also invoked Emanuel’s remarks on crisis, calling them the “one motto that defines this administration.”

“Democrats are using this bill as another opportunity to extend government’s reach,” McConnell said. “They’re quintupling the tax oil companies pay into the oil spill liability trust fund that was created in the wake of Exxon Valdez. And instead of using this money to clean up the oil spewing in the Gulf, they’re raiding the trust fund to pay for new, unrelated spending.”

“In other words, they’re using the crisis in the Gulf not only as cover for even more government spending, but as a major source of funding for it,” he added. “This is an outrage.”

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democrats shot back at Republicans, accusing them of being in the pocket of Big Oil.

“Today, with thousands of barrels of oil still gushing into the Gulf, Republicans are shamelessly protecting oil companies from accountability for their greed, recklessness and negligence,” Reid said in a statement.

“The American people would be a lot better off if Republicans spent their time working with Democrats to hold BP accountable and ensuring that a disaster like this never happens again, instead of repeatedly protecting Big Oil and every other corporate special interest under the sun.”